Fit water meters with leak detectors says Cllr
KERRY County Council has been asked to fit water meters with the capability of detecting leaks when fitting household meters in the future.
In a motion before the January meeting of the county council, Cllr John Sheahan called on the council, when fitting household water meters to “ensure that the meters have the capability of alerting the householder when there is a leak in the system, thus averting a very costly water charge”.
Cllr Sheahan gave the costly example of a farmer who did not realise he had a leak in his system. The councillor also told the meeting that he himself was the victim of a water leak which had caused considerable damage to his property. He said he had discovered a device on the internet, manufactured in Limerick, which cut off the water supply when a leak was detected.
“This device detects leaks quickly. There is less wastage as it limits it by cutting off the water supply,” Cllr Sheahan said.
Ger O’brien, Head of Corporate Services, Kerry County Council, said that all meters installed by Kerry County Council in non-domestic properties had all been fitted with a radio unit which could detect a possible leak if there was a constant flow for 24 hours.
“When the meters are read, these leak alarms are detected and leak notices are issued to customers informing them of the possible leak,” he said. Mr O’brien confirmed that the county council had issued over 1,100 leak notices in 2010. He did point out however, that there were difficulties with ‘real-time’ leak alarms.
“There are difficulties in having a real-time leak alarm as there is no means of communicating this to the customer and there is also a limited battery life on the radio unit,” he said. “Therefore, there is no economical solution available at present. However, there are constant developments in the area of automatic meter reading and the feasibility of an ‘in house’ alarm feature could be considered if and when the metering of domestic supplies takes place.”
Cllr Sheahan requested that the county council distribute information to water users with meters regarding the device he had found on the internet.